We currently live in very troubling times, where there has been a conspicuous resurgence of pre-medieval religious fundamentalism in the Islamic world, with widespread conflict and serial atrocities being performed in the name of “faith” in many parts of the developing world, especially Africa and the Middle East. This problematic trend is now inevitably spilling forth into Western democracies in this modern, globalised and increasingly interconnected world.
It is by no means the case, however, that all such violent and barbaric actions can be characterised as purely motivated along religious grounds. Far from it, in fact, given the avowed atheism of despotic leaders such as Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot, which proved no barrier whatsoever in each case to the indiscriminate genocide of millions of their own people. Nor did the overt occultist satanism of Heinrich Himmler and his SS inner circle, or the Teutonic paganism of Adolph Hitler for that matter, present any obstacle whatsoever to the deliberate slaughter of innocent men, women and children on a massive scale in the last century alone.
Nevertheless, this recently apparent trend of humanity devolving back to its seminal roots of religious intolerance, theocratic rule and sectarian warfare, with the widespread treatment of those of a different religious faith as sub-human creatures beneath contempt to be used with disdain as objects for sadistic pleasure or sexual gratification, causes one to pause and consider not only the nature of God (were He/She/It to exist), but also the overall influence of religious faith on the human species, particularly as it has manifest particularly over the last 2000 years.
I preface my argument by stating that I do not personally believe in any form of organised religion, and that I utterly reject the notion of God as some kind of moral arbiter or imperator for humankind. Nor do I accept the idea of an interventionist God who meddles in human affairs, inflicting divine retribution upon the faithless or the evil, or protecting the pious and the “righteous” from pain and suffering, or delivering comfort to the grieving, the ill or the infirm. I also do not believe in a God imbued with any of the human emotions, qualities or characteristics whatsoever, because I believe this merely derives as an extension of anthropomorphic beliefs that are ultimately a reflection of our collective tendency for conceptualising the metaphysical, were it to exist, in broadly humanistic terms, by harkening back to our animist roots in prehistory.
Similarly, I have no faith or belief in the infallibility or divinity of prophets or in prophesy, nor do I believe that the various manifestations of weather or climate, or the multitude of different natural disasters that are bound by the vagaries of chance to befall us, are driven in any way by any deity or supreme being or entity, no matter what religious denomination or faith may hope to lay claims of absolute hegemony over such matters of divine retribution.
Instead, I believe in a thoroughly dispassionate, utterly remorseless, relentless and entirely rational universe, one which is driven by forces that have the potential at least to be definable and explicable even in our rudimentary understanding. It is important however to acknowledge that there remains a multiplicity of aspects of our universal reality for which humankind has yet to find even a suitable perspective, let alone a remotely comprehensive explanation. And therein lies the broad chasm in which religious beliefs are able to find their niche, in the realms of the unknown, and more especially the unknowable in a vast and mysterious universe that defies easy explanation at the current level of our very basic human comprehension and experience.
Clearly, throughout prehistory when the pool of human knowledge was relatively small, and many natural phenomena defied what those of the time would have thought to be a rational explanation, it is not difficult to understand the attractiveness of a divine or supernatural being with the power to modify the very forces of nature at a whim, as a means of quelling fear of the unknown, for providing comfort and guidance in times of hardship, but also in promoting a stimulus to action in the face of any consequent adversity, no matter how futile or irrational such beliefs and their consequent actions seem from our modern perspective.
Of course, as a result of this understandable human trait in seeking such authoritative guidance in the face of the unknown, there have always been those individuals who lay claim to special knowledge or insight into the spiritual or the divine, whether that be the shaman, the druid, the guru or the various readers of the Abrahamic faiths: the rabbis, the priests, the ministers or the imams. This is unfortunately the foundation for what is commonly known as “organised religion”, where those who form the enlightened core of the cognoscenti of a particular faith then decide those who are to be schooled in its core beliefs, and as a consequence also those that can be entrusted with its “divine” knowledge. These “chosen” are then given the authority to disseminate not only among the followers of that religion, but in many cases to proselytise and evangelise to those who have not yet gained exposure to their particular brand of belief and faith.
Needless to say that this is the source of much of human history’s litany of religious conflicts and the ensuing misery and suffering, that being a battle fought for the hearts and minds of not just the faithful but the unbeliever, but also for control of the”flock” through the propagation of the mythology of the faith. This also requires the subjugation or conversion of the “infidel” or “heretic” to reduce in number those of competing faiths, with the aim of swelling the ranks of one’s own religion to the maximum achievable extent to the exclusion of any others. For some faiths, that is best achieved through peaceful persuasion as to the merits of the faith though its humane works, with others it is through indoctrination and ritual, while still others it can unfortunately extend even to the edge of the sword, or to the point of a gun.
In spite of the widespread abuse of this power by many of those same leaders of the various faiths, it would be remiss of me not to mention that to some extent this over-riding belief in a higher power or in a divine purpose for humankind has not necessarily led solely to the propagation of superstition and ignorance, but it has also in many instances sharpened the mind and strengthened the resolve by providing great and enduring inspiration to some of the greatest intellects of history; men and women who have vastly improved our understanding of the natural world and the universe, whilst being otherwise faithfully religious human beings who fervently believed in God and his dominion over mankind. Men of the calibre of Nicholas Copernicus, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, Gregor Mendel, Max Planck and Albert Einstein were known to be devout believers in a Judeo-Christian God, and are among the most highly influential and elite scientists in human history, responsible among other things for the development of the modern philosophy and concept of the scientific method itself, as well as instigating fundamental understanding and various other breakthroughs in the areas of genetics, astronomy, fundamental physics, electricity and magnetism, the characteristics of atomic and subatomic particles, and in the formulation of quantum theory.
It may be no coincidence therefore that the scientific enlightenment, from which much of our understanding of the universe arose, came from the predominantly Christian countries of Europe, a faith which drew clear distinctions between the Kingdom of God and faith, and the secular world which promoted the acquisition of scientific understanding.
Many of the most important figures in the history of science and philosophy have tried to reconcile their thoughts and their theories within their disciplines with their understanding of God, which in turn was largely viewed through the teachings inculcated by, and the preconceptions prevalent within the Christian Bible.
My personal approach to understanding the creation and structure of the universe, however, differs somewhat from those teachings in that I begin with the presumption that the Christian, or for that matter the Jewish or Islamic perception of God is a flawed one, born of the influence of organised religion and its sometimes less than pure motivation for the broadest of control of the general populace, and in the service of entrenching their role as the ultimate moral arbiters of wisdom and knowledge for their followers.
Thus, when looking for evidence of the existence or otherwise of some higher power that not only created, but shapes, guides and organises the universe, several physical manifestations appear to me to hold far greater promise than the concept of God as depicted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. According to the Big Bang theory of creation of the universe, for example, the universe originated in a dimensionless singularity where all the matter now within the universe was contained in its most highly organised state. Once that matter was released, thereafter the universe possessed high levels of entropy, the rate of increase of which must be finely balanced to support the formation of galaxies, planets and thus the environment capable of supporting life within the cosmos. So, the question must then be asked: Is the unseen force of entropy itself a form, or at least a manifestation, of what we might refer to as “God”, or at the very least a significant facet or even a fingerprint of a “creator” of some kind?
Additionally, at least in our current level of understanding, there are four fundamental forces that act to “organise” the universe, over and above and in contradiction to the overarching tendency toward disorder. These four forces, Gravitational force, Electromagnetic force, Strong Nuclear force and Weak Nuclear force, each act over vastly different ranges and at vastly differing levels of strength, but which, in concert, interact harmoniously and precisely to form the very structure of the universe. These four forces, therefore, demonstrate qualities which would be completely consistent with what a religious person might term “divine” creative forces, that could constitute non-anthropomorphic aspects or facets of what we traditionally refer to as “God”, in at least the Judeo-Christian context.
The various forces that combine to stabilise the structural integrity of the universe include:
- Gravitational force, which is relatively weak but very long ranged in acting over cosmological distances. It is always attractive, and acts between any two pieces of matter within the Universe since mass is its source.
- The Electromagnetic force, which causes electric and magnetic effects, such as the repulsion between like electrical charges. It is quite long-ranged, but much weaker than the Strong Nuclear force at close quarters. It can be attractive or repulsive, and acts only between pieces of matter carrying electrical charge.
- The Strong Nuclear interaction is, as the name implies, very strong but it is extremely short-ranged. It acts only over ranges of the order of 1 femtometer (the diameter of a medium sized atomic nucleus) and is responsible for holding the nuclei of atoms together against the force of repulsion among protons of like charge. It is basically attractive, but can be effectively repulsive in certain circumstances.
- The Weak Nuclear force, on the other hand, is responsible for radioactive decay and neutrino interactions and has a very short range, of the order of about 0.1% of the diameter of a proton. As the name suggests, it is extremely weak relatively when compared to its Strong nuclear counterpart, though arguably it is no less influential to maintaining the structural integrity of matter.
Thus, it can be seen from the above description that these fundamental forces of nature form a complex interactive and harmonious framework, where should any of the components vary even ever so slightly, then the very existence of the universe as we currently experience it would be fatally compromised.
If Gravity was too strong, then stars would burn too hot and too briefly to be conducive to producing and sustaining life, whereas if Gravity were too weak, stars would be too cool for nuclear fusion reactions to occur, thereby also being unable to support the formation of life.
If Electromagnetic forces were stronger or weaker, chemical and molecular bonding would be substantially impaired, and significant instability of various elements would also occur.
If Strong Nuclear forces were stronger, there would be no Hydrogen, an element essential to sustain life within the universe, while if weaker the only element would be Hydrogen, because higher molecular weight elements would be rendered completely unstable.
Finally, if Weak Nuclear forces were stronger or weaker, not only would neutrinos, quarks and leptons be unable to interact or transmute at a subatomic level, but also the heavy element expulsion from stars would be compromised, and the balance of Hydrogen to Helium produced at the Big Bang would have been altered dramatically.
It can be seen from the aforementioned that without this meticulously precise interaction between these four forces, each with its own special spectrum and range of activity, nothing that we experience in our present reality would exist and the very fabric of the universe would be rendered entirely hostile to the establishment, let alone the ongoing maintenance, of life. Does this apparent precision merely come down to the vagaries of chance? The vast improbability of this specific combination of forces being able to interact in such a complimentary way with one another to provide an environment capable of supporting life, is so great as to render probabilistic arguments in favour of mere chance to be completely unsustainable.
Does that mean that one must therefore believe in a deity or supreme being controlling the fate of the cosmos? I would argue that it doesn’t necessarily imply that, although it remains one possible explanation, albeit one that could never be falsified or refuted by its very nature. Rather, I would contend that there remains the distinct possibility that our universe is organised and shaped by forces which cross the boundaries of dimensional reality, that “bleed” from one or more higher dimensional planes across into our 4 dimensional space-time continuum. These forces may rely on the organisational principles found within those higher dimensions, principles that may possibly differ greatly from our own and be of far greater complexity by orders of magnitude. This higher order complexity might be the reason that these forces are organised within our dimensional space seemingly in such a precise, countervailing balance with one another. Our perception of “intelligence”, divine or otherwise, would therefore be largely irrelevant when contextualised against the organising principles of physics within these higher dimensional planes.
Beyond the purely matter-based aspects of the physical universe, there are many organising and creative influences that counteract the relentless chaos of the cosmos, including but not limited to the consciousness and cognitive processes of higher order organisms, the process of natural selection through evolution in perpetuating and propogating more suitable species over those with less favourable traits, and also in the recurring patterns found in nature, especially the so called golden ratio of the Fibonacci mathematical sequence, evident in such diverse situations as the orbits of the planets in our solar system, to the structures of various plants and insects, to the structure of DNA, to the proportions found in the human face to name but a few. These may be markers for the influence of the four fundamental forces found in our cosmos, the relationship to which may not be readily apparent to our current level of understanding, but which could realistically have its own internal logic that drives these organisational influences in ways we are as yet unable to define.
The concept of “God”, a divine and infallible creator, has a tantalising plausibility for many thanks largely to the endless wonders of our natural world, the mind-boggling complexity, diversity and innate beauty of life on our planet, and the awe-inspiring power and vast magnitude of the observed universe. The greater our understanding of the forces that shape the universe and the intricacy of the atomic and sub-atomic basis for the structure of matter, the more compelling this belief seems to be that there has been some kind of design or an over-riding plan or scheme that guides the formation and maintenance of this structure.
Notwithstanding this “Divine Creator” explanation that argues from the authority of holy writ (of whatever denomination), or ignorance of any other possibility to explain the inexplicable, I would argue that we indeed know so little of the nature and essential structure of the universe, both that which is observed and unobserved (remembering that it is generally held that approx. 80-90% of the energy and matter in the universe is unaccounted for in our present understanding), that we could just as easily be describing a “natural” physical phenomenon that guides us with seemingly clockwork precision, governed only by the rules of physics that originate in infinitely more complex realms of existence beyond the plane in which we mere mortal creatures currently reside.
In spite of this and other potentially plausible explanations for a universe free from guidance by divine intelligence and design, those atheists that dogmatically deny the potential existence of a Creator may well be skating on thin ice intellectually, although perhaps not to quite the same extent as those who, as a matter of course, assume one.
If indeed there exists a “God” that shapes the universe, it is my contention that this God is not a being as we currently conceptualise “Him”, but it would be appropriate to consider the Creator as an extracorporeal force (or interplay of forces) that not only provides the fabric upon which our universe is brought forth into existence, but also guides its path toward its eventual fate as either:
- the cold and lifeless oblivion of heat death (“The Big Freeze”),
- the cataclysm of reaching the limit of universal expansion (“The Big Rip”),
- the ultimate return to a perfect singularity (“The Big Crunch”),
- to an oscillating infinity mediated through contraction to a point where a reversal of gravitational forces occurs that then allows the universe to re-expand once again (“The Big Bounce”), or
- to some other fate that ultimately exceeds the limited purview of our understanding of the nature of the forces that shape our universe.
1984redux 
Hello Winston,
I came here following your comment on Andrew Bolt’s blog today, to see what sort of argument you made.
Well, I got my answer! You made an evidence-free argument! That is, you start with the assumption of no God (at least no God as described in the Bible), and have interpreted the Bible, Christianity, history, and etc. within that paradigm. You’ve told a story of what, in your opinion, is the case, but without any actual evidence or argument to support it, let alone any rebuttal of the extensive arguments for the existence of God, the authenticity of the Bible, and so on.
As such, there is little for me to attempt to rebut, because there is little (if any) actual argument. But I’ll point out at least one inconsistency in your story.
You say that “Does that mean that one must therefore believe in a deity or supreme being controlling the fate of the cosmos? I would argue that it doesn’t necessarily imply that at all, but it remains one possible explanation, albeit one that could never be falsified or refuted by its very nature.”
First, you make an assertion that it could never be falsified or refuted, but don’t even attempt to show that it can’t be. You simply assert it.
But second, you go on to propose the following: “Rather, I would contend that there remains the distinct possibility that our universe is organised and shaped by forces which cross the boundaries of dimensional reality, that “bleed” from one or more higher dimensional planes across into our 4 dimensional space-time continuum. These forces may rely on the organisational principles found within those higher dimensions, principles that may possibly differ greatly from our own and be of far greater complexity by orders of magnitude. This higher order complexity might be the reason that these forces are organised within our dimensional space seemingly in such a precise, countervailing balance with one another.”
The problem is that /this/ story could also never be falsified or refuted by its very nature, because we simply don’t have access to those alleged other planes or dimension to test the story. But you don’t mention that. You downplay the God explanation on the grounds of it being unfalsifiable, then propose an alternative that is itself unfalsifiable.
So yes, this is your atheism speaking. It’s not reasoned argument, with evidence and logic, but simply an atheistic just-so story.
G’day Philip,
Firstly, thanks for taking the time to write a fairly detailed comment in response to my opinion piece.
I think, however, if you take another look at what I’ve written, you will see that I take a fairly even-handed swipe at the assumptions of atheists such as myself, every bit as much as I do for religious beliefs such as yours, which you are perfectly entitled to hold dear, and I am not attempting to dissuade you from your beliefs one iota. Our ignorance as to the nature of the universe is virtually absolute, so any and all possibilities need to be entertained, and no legitimate explanation should be ruled out in the face of such a paucity of understanding.
In spite of my lack of belief in a God as posited in the Judeo-Christian tradition, I certainly have the greatest respect for the moral framework that Christianity, and particularly the teachings of Jesus, have given us as a legacy, and I have further stated how the scientific enlightenment would not have been possible were it not for the attitudes of particularly Christian intellectuals from the High Middle Ages onwards (for the most part) in separating scientific understanding of the natural world from religious faith.
As to evidence, I would suggest to you that the entire atheist/ theist argument is almost evidence free and unfalsifiable by its very nature, with the sole exception of the Bible (and perhaps the sacred texts of other denominations depending on your faith and point of view) which, with all due respect, I do not accept as the direct word of the Creator of the Universe, and therefore is not what I would deem as “evidence”, regardless of any merit it might have as guidance for human behaviour, as a legal framework, as a historical treatise, or as an instructional document as to how healthy societies should function.
The evidence of an expanding universe, and the predictive accuracy of General Relativity back to the period immediately after the Big Bang (whereupon Quantum theory comes into its own for the event itself) has been done to death by others far more erudite than I previously, and was not material to the argument I am putting forward.
As someone who (immodestly perhaps) can see both sides of this argument more than most, I’ve actually given you a number of facts in my essay which could just as easily denote “intelligent design” of the universe (e.g. the complex interplay of the 4 forces, the recurring patterns in nature) and thus bolster your beliefs in a Creator still further, yet you seemed to have glossed over those aspects of my argument in favour of taking (mild) offence at my lack of belief in a deity with human qualities. I don’t think I am being as dogmatic or as emphatic as you suggest in your reply, but I fully acknowledge that my opinion piece is an assertion without definitive evidence. I would suggest to you, however, that it has been around 2000 years or so since there existed anyone who could have produce anything more definitive than that.
Hello again Winston,
I am very willing to agree that you have not been as dogmatic and anti-Christian as many prominent atheists, and did notice your acceptance of both the fact that science was founded in a Christian society and that this might be due to more than coincidence.
However, even here your underlying atheist assumptions show through. You say, for example, that “Many of the most important figures in the history of science and philosophy have tried to reconcile their thoughts and their theories within their disciplines with their understanding of God…”, which presumes that there is an inherent conflict between the two, whereas science arose /because/ of their understanding of God. For example, they understood God to be a lawmaker, so figured that He made laws to govern the universe, and therefore went looking to discover those laws. I therefore reject your response regarding “the attitudes of particularly Christian intellectuals from the High Middle Ages onwards … in separating scientific understanding of the natural world from religious faith.”. No such separation was needed. It was their “religious faith” that led them to scientifically study God’s creation (the “natural world”).
I also appreciate you, unlike many atheists, at least acknowledging the possibility that the Bible can be considered evidence. Yes, you reject it as being such, but again, without providing any reason. On the contrary, your stated reason for rejecting it as evidence is illogical. You say that “I do not accept as the direct word of the Creator of the Universe, and therefore is not what I would deem as “evidence”…”. But a written record doesn’t have to be from God to be usable as evidence. And there are good reasons to both (a) consider the Bible to be a reliable historical record, and (b) consider it to be God’s revelation to us.
I did also note your mention of facts that show evidence of design, but you dismissed them as being such, without providing any reason to do so. But I didn’t take offence at your lack of belief. Rather, I expressed frustration that you would write such a lengthy essay that put a position without any real supporting argument. I wasn’t accusing you of being dogmatic or emphatic (you certainly weren’t). Rather, I was accusing you of letting your presuppositions colour your views to the almost total exclusion of reason and evidence. I know that presuppositions colour all our views, but most people try and put forward what they think are reasons in support of those views, rather than rely almost totally on those presuppositions. So no, you weren’t emphatic nor dogmatic. But you appear to base more on your presuppositions than you realise (such as the presumption that there is some natural conflict between Christian views and science).
“I would suggest to you, however, that it has been around 2000 years or so since there existed anyone who could have produce anything more definitive than that.”
Huh? There are many people around today capable of mounting an evidence-based reasoned argument in support of the existence of God as described in the Bible.
Hi Philip,
Clearly I was referring to Jesus in my 2000 year comment as one who might lay claim to direct contact with, and first hand evidence of, a God. Many have claimed such an intimate relationship since, but without being deliberately offensive, I remain skeptical that any of those are remotely legitimate. That’s why I referred to “direct” evidence.
I certainly don’t deny that rational arguments in favour of divine creation can be made, and that some supportive evidence can certainly be brought forth in support of this. But I think that falls short of absolute proof, and I could give you a long list of fallacies of a non-religious nature (Global Warming being one) that have some supportive evidence that makes them plausible, even though they are likely to be false.
The fact remains that the idea of an omniscient and omnipresent and omnipotent creator is rife with its own inherent inconsistencies. If a being is omniscient and omnipresent, what purpose does Creation serve? What knowledge or benefit can this being gain from it that He/It doesn’t already know? Any thought, any action, any motivation and any event is predestined in its entirety, with a completely predetermined course and outcome. A perfect Creator would have no needs, no wants and no desires, and therefore the Creation of the universe you ascribe to Him would serve no purpose.
A case in point is the sacrifice of Isaac. According to the Hebrew Bible, God commands Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. After Isaac is bound to an altar, a messenger from God stops Abraham at the last minute, saying “Now I know you fear God.” An omniscient and omnipresent and omnipotent God did not need to “test” Abraham’s faith and resolve, since He knew precisely what Abraham would do even before he did. The sequence of events would be a fait accompli to God, and therefore He would be pointlessly inflicting suffering upon both Abraham and his innocent son for no purpose other than to tell Him what He already knew.
The presence of Hell, evil or suffering is also evidence of the imperfection of God as described in the Judeo-Christian tradition, since as God pervades all things then that implies that these imperfections are themselves a component of a perfect Creator, which is a mutually exclusive and irreconcilable incongruity.
Of course, you and your fellow believers in the faith have no clear explanation of who or what created God, other than He always existed. How is that any different than the argument by non believers that the universe always existed and therefore didn’t require a Creator at all?
As God is perfect, why are the scriptures of different denominations often inconsistent with one another, sometimes inconsistent or contradictory internally, and sometimes in contradiction with scientifically proven facts that have come to the fore since the Bible was written (e.g the fossil record)? An omniscient God would not have allowed such contradictions to undermine the faith of His believers, as that would cause intelligent and thoughtful people to become more agnostic, whilst the uncritical would ignore these inconsistencies and believe regardless. I find it hard to believe that a Creator would give the gift of intellect and analytical capacity only to punish those who have the wherewithal to use it.
To me, both the atheist case and the theist one have “holes” in their logic, and it often becomes a case of what one wants to believe. Anyway, thank you for the discussion, and I am happy to continue in this vein if you so desire at any time. I respect your beliefs and have taken your criticisms on board.
And another hello, Winston,
Yes, I realised that you were referring to Jesus. But you didn’t say anything about “direct contact”. Rather, you referred to “anyone who could have produce[d] anything more definitive than” “assertion without definite evidence”. Many others could do /that/.
Yes, arguments in favour of creation do fall short of “absolute proof”, but then so do arguments for evolution. So “absolute proof” is not the benchmark that needs to be achieved. (See also my final remarks in this post.)
“…the idea of an omniscient and omnipresent and omnipotent creator is rife with its own inherent inconsistencies.”
So you claim, but don’t show. Simply asking questions, such as what purpose creation serves, does not demonstrate inconsistencies. You claim that we know almost nothing about the universe, but seem to think that we know enough about God’s desires and purposes to say that He could not possibly have a reason for creating. And you haven’t shown that there would have to be a “completely predetermined course and outcome”. Personally, I think that Free Will is the contradiction to this, analogous to a computer programmer who introduces a random number generator to take the application in non-predetermined directions. This also answers your objection regarding hell.
I agree that God would already have known how Abraham would respond to His request to sacrifice Isaac, but it doesn’t follow that the request therefore had no purpose. An obvious potential purposes is to teach Abraham, Isaac, and/or others who read the account, something about God and His relationship with us. For example, the event confirmed for Abraham his belief that “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering” (Genesis 22:8) This would have been a lesson that Abraham would not readily forget.
Your comment about who or what created God is garbled. That God always existed is not an explanation of that, but instead demonstrates that the very question is invalid, as He wasn’t created, so no who or what is required. And how is the claim that God always existed not clear?
The claim that God always existed is different to the claim that the universe always existed simply because the former claim is plausible and the latter is not. We know from observations that the universe is running down (has increasing entropy). If it always existed, i.e. was infinitely old, then it would have already completely run down. It hasn’t, which demonstrates that it has not always existed. God is not running down, so the same argument doesn’t apply to Him.
Generally speaking, the scriptures of different denominations are NOT different, let alone inconsistent with each other, and not internally contradictory. There are no Baptist scriptures, nor Uniting Church scriptures, nor Church of Christ scripture, nor Presbyterian scriptures, nor Anglican scriptures, etc. There is the Bible, which all Christian denominations accept. About the only exceptions to this generalisation are the Catholics who include some books that Protestants don’t accept (but the rest are accepted in common), and the Jehovah Witnesses who have their own translation, but the Jehovah Witnesses are generally not considered to be a Christian denomination anyway, because they don’t accept the deity of Christ.
Neither are the scriptures in contradiction to scientifically proven facts. You didn’t explain how the fossil record is inconsistent. According to the Bible, there was a global flood in Noah’s time, and although the Bible doesn’t mention fossils, it is clear that such a flood would bury many living things, turning many of them into fossils. So the existence of fossils is entirely consistent. Further, for fossils to form, they have to be buried rapidly and somewhat deeply, which is just what such a flood would do. This stands in contradiction to the secular view that they formed by processes we see occurring today, given that we don’t see events occurring today that are capable of producing fossils in the numbers we find in the fossil record.
I don’t accept that the theist case has holes in its logic. I do accept that both atheistic and theistic arguments are incomplete and/or cannot explain everything comprehensively. I also agree that it’s often a case of what one wants to believe. However, I am also convinced, having studied this topic for decades, that the theistic case is far stronger than the atheistic case.
Hi again Philip,
I must say that, whilst I am impressed by your passion, I can certainly see why a theist/atheist debate in good spirits and good faith is almost impossible to have. Having read over your comments a second time, I must admit that I have probably let you get away with misrepresenting my argument a bit too much for my liking, and I feel I must direct a response to you refuting some things that you claim I have said:
In your first post you state:
“I’ll point out at least one inconsistency in your story.
You say that “Does that mean that one must therefore believe in a deity or supreme being controlling the fate of the cosmos? I would argue that it doesn’t necessarily imply that at all, but it remains one possible explanation, albeit one that could never be falsified or refuted by its very nature.”
My assertion was merely that a supreme being controlling the fate of the cosmos was not the only possible explanation, hence the use of the word “necessarily”, and I don’t believe that is an unreasonable statement to make, nor dismissive of the possibility of a Creator, nor could it be characterized as an “inconsistency”.
You go on to say:
“First, you make an assertion that it could never be falsified or refuted, but don’t even attempt to show that it can’t be. You simply assert it.”
Of course it is impossible to falsify a deity as being the Creator of the Cosmos, because not one person exists in this world today that can say incontrovertibly that they have had direct contact with God, and provide objective evidence (i.e. witnessed by disinterested non-believer third parties) to support that claim. Something can only be truly said to be falsifiable if it is a physical manifestation that is tangible, and can be corroborated by any and all objective observers, not just with the testimony of the faithful.
You also state:
“I therefore reject your response regarding “the attitudes of particularly Christian intellectuals from the High Middle Ages onwards … in separating scientific understanding of the natural world from religious faith”. No such separation was needed. It was their “religious faith” that led them to scientifically study God’s creation (the “natural world”).”
Jesus himself separated Church from state, and explicitly also the Kingdom of Heaven from the earthly realm, when He said “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”. Jesus also responded to Pontius Pilate about the nature of his kingdom: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But now (or ‘as it is’) my kingdom is not from the world” i.e., his religious teachings were separate from earthly political activity. This reflects a traditional division in Christian thought by which state and church have separate spheres of influence.
This important distinction made by Jesus allowed those who pursued scientific understanding that may have conflicted with literal Biblical interpretation of the time (e.g. Heliocentrism) the freedom to expand scientific knowledge, where other more restrictive religious doctrines (e.g. Islam) did not, at least to the same degree, draw that distinction.
You go on to say:
“But a written record doesn’t have to be from God to be usable as evidence. And there are good reasons to both (a) consider the Bible to be a reliable historical record, and (b) consider it to be God’s revelation to us.”
In legal terms this is called “hearsay” evidence, the second hand account of what someone may or may not have said. There are obvious reasons why this evidence carries less weight in legal proceedings, because language is the symbolic representation of events and can be open to interpretation and misrepresentation.
As far as the Bible being an accurate historical record, I draw your attention to archeological findings, or lack thereof, that cast doubt on the whole story of the Israelites flight from Egypt and defeating the Canaanites to establish a Kingdom in the “promised land”- it is found in an article by Ze’ev Herzog, Professor of archaeology at The Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University called “Deconstructing the Walls of Jericho” and is found at the following link:
http://www.umich.edu/~proflame/neh/arch.htm
The upshot is that there is very little or no archeological evidence to back up many of the claims made in the Old Testament about Moses and the Israelites; namely that archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel that: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Also, the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. It was even more startling to find evidence that the God of Israel, Yahweh, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai.
Most of those who are engaged in scientific work in the interlocking spheres of the Bible, archaeology and the history of the Jewish people – and who once went into the field looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story – now agree that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people’s emergence are radically different from what that Bible tells us. That would, at the very least, cast doubt on the veracity of the Bible as a wholly reliable historical record.
“I did also note your mention of facts that show evidence of design, but you dismissed them as being such………
But you didn’t say anything about “direct contact”.”
Firstly, I did not “dismiss” them in any way shape or form, merely contended that there may be other potential explanations.
Dismiss (verb): to treat as unworthy of serious consideration
Clearly I have not made any attempt to dismiss by that definition. My whole article was giving it due and serious consideration and NOT dismissing it.
As to your semantic argument about my use of the word “direct”, I did in fact explicitly make that statement about direct evidence (and therefore contact is implied) in my very first comment to you when I said:
“I do not accept as the direct word of the Creator of the Universe, and therefore is not what I would deem as “evidence”……”
You make a further statement I wish to take issue with, namely:
“And you haven’t shown that there would have to be a “completely predetermined course and outcome”.”
The idea that a perfect, omniscient and omnipotent God would produce Creation which would entirely predetermined in its outcome (“Predeterminism”, an offshoot of Determinism) dates back at least to Laplace in 1814, as per the following quotation:
“We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”
— Pierre Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities
You also state, in response to my justified criticism of the sacrifice of Isaac as being predetermined, and therefore unnecessarily cruel:
“This would have been a lesson that Abraham would not readily forget.”
To which I would respond: And what lesson did poor Isaac learn from arbitrarily being put to the sword on a whim, albeit the whim of God? Such an unjust death at the hands of one’s own father would only breed fear and distrust in Isaac of his own father.
You further assert:
The claim that God always existed is different to the claim that the universe always existed simply because the former claim is plausible and the latter is not.
You accused me of discussing this whole issue with my “atheism speaking”, and not providing a reasoned argument, yet in this statement you are making just such an assertion without any evidence. God having always existed is no more or less plausible than the Universe having always existed. It is merely that you view that as a fait accompli because your faith dictates that the Universe was created- an a priori assumption you make out of religious belief. Whilst this is something you are quite entitled to do, it is in my view of no greater or lesser plausibility than the opposing belief. It could therefore also be said of you, Philip, that “you appear to base more on your presuppositions than you realise “.
One further assertion you make requires rebuttal:
“The scriptures of different denominations are NOT different, let alone inconsistent with each other, and not internally contradictory. Neither are the scriptures in contradiction to scientifically proven facts. You didn’t explain how the fossil record is inconsistent.”
Firstly, when I referred to religious denominations, I was not just referring to Christian ones but also to all the Abrahamic religions. My essay only singled out Christianity in praise for its role in the scientific enlightenment of the 17 and 1800’s, but otherwise I was referring to all organized religions in my critique. You seem to have only viewed it from a Christian perspective, and yet even then you did provide example of Catholics and Jehovah’s witnesses (the same applies I’m sure to Mormons, etc) deviating significantly from other Christian faiths.
Islam, I’m sure you would agree, certainly has a far different opinion as to the validity of various aspects of the Bible, as evidenced by multiple sites on the internet that highlight lists of inconsistencies found within the Christian Bible, some criticisms of which are fairly trivial or invalid, but certainly some criticisms, particularly of Genesis and the sequence of creation are not only non-trivial but are fundamentally at odds with our scientific understanding: Light preceding the Sun, Plants preceding the creation of the Sun in spite of requiring photosynthesis, the Moon producing its own light rather than reflecting that of the sun, the trillions of stars in the universe almost as an afterthought: “He also made the stars “, etc, etc.
A list of some of this inherent inconsistencies, and contradictions to known scientific facts are listed here:
https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/reasons-humanists-reject-bible/
or if you prefer, here:
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mvz/bible/bible-inconsistencies.pdf
So, with all due respect, Philip, it would appear that in this debate at least, there are some compelling arguments for and against both the theist and atheist position from any objective viewpoint, and what you criticize my essay for, a lack of “evidence”, seems to be a ubiquitous issue and not merely confined to my article.
I have a different reason for being sceptical of having a good-faith debate on
this-the appalling arguments often put up by the atheist side. But more on that
below. As for your claim, no, I did not misrepresent your argument. You have
misrepresented mine.
YOUR ASSERTION
“My assertion was merely that a supreme being controlling the fate of the cosmos was
not the only possible explanation, hence the use of the word “necessarily”, and I
don’t believe that is an unreasonable statement to make, … nor could it be
characterized as an “inconsistency”.”
You did indeed make that assertion, and I completely agree that it’s a reasonable
assertion to make. However, you /also/ asserted that it “could never be falsified
or refuted by its very nature”. And I /explicitly/ said that it was /that/ assertion
I was challenging. So it is you who has misrepresented me here.
And in the same way, it was not your assertion of the possibility of a supreme being
that I claimed was an inconsistency. The inconsistency was in asserting the
inability to falsify or refute it but not similarly mentioning the inability to
falsify or refute your proposal that our universe could be influenced from other
dimensions.
FALSIFYING A CREATOR
“Of course it is impossible to falsify a deity as being the Creator of the Cosmos…”
No, it’s not “of course”. It depends on a number of factors, such as whether that
claim of a deity includes specific claims that can be checked. I agree that it is
impossible to falsify that some unspecified deity was the creator, but if the claim
of a creator includes specific claims about, say, when it happened or just what he
did, then it is not obvious that those claims cannot themselves be falsified. For
example, the biblical claim is that God created the world around 6,000 years ago.
Many atheists would argue that /that/ claim /can/ be falsified (I disagree, but
that’s another matter.)
“Something can only be truly said to be falsifiable if it is a physical
manifestation that is tangible…”
Such as the properties of the physical world, created by a specific deity.
“…because not one person exists in this world today that can … provide objective
evidence…”
Which is about proof /for/ God, not falsification, although that’s a separate point.
SCIENCE VS. SCRIPTURE
“Jesus himself separated Church from state, and explicitly also the Kingdom of
Heaven from the earthly realm…”
This has nothing to do with the point we were discussing. Separation of church and
state (a better example of which is probably King David and Samuel) is about the
state controlling the church. It has nothing to do with science not meshing with
“religious faith”.
“This important distinction made by Jesus allowed those who pursued scientific
understanding that may have conflicted with literal Biblical interpretation of the
time (e.g. Heliocentrism)…”
No, it didn’t allow them such, because both science and the Bible make truth claims
about reality, and separation of church and state does not abrogate the need for
both to accurately describe reality. Secondly, as I said, there was no need,
because there is no conflict. Thirdly, heliocentrism was an old Greek idea that
the church adopted; it is not taught in the Bible. (There are poetic verses that
phenomenologically support it, but then so do we every time we refer to the sun rising
and setting.)
HEARSAY
“In legal terms this is called “hearsay” evidence, the second hand account of what
someone may or may not have said.”
Who said anything about it being a second-hand account? Much of it is first-hand
account.
THE ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE
I notice that you lead with a logically-weak argument, a /lack/ of evidence. Surely
you know that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?
But absence of evidence is not the whole story. There is in fact considerable evidence. But before I explain, suppose some archaeologists from thousands of years in the future were looking for evidence of 21st-century people having airports, and could find no evidence of such for the 21st century, because they were in fact looking in strata dating to the 18th-century. Would that absence of evidence prove that 21st-century people didn’t have airports? Of course not.
Herzog, in talking about Jericho, says “Despite the excavators’ efforts, it emerged that in the late part of the 13th century BCE, at the end of the Late Bronze Age, which is the agreed period for the conquest, there were no cities in either tell, and of course no walls that could have been toppled.” Note carefully: he doesn’t say that Jericho didn’t have walls; he says that they didn’t have walls /at that time/. In fact excavations have shown that Jericho had walls, that the walls toppled, that the city was burnt (as the Bible describes), and that a section hadn’t toppled, and this section showed houses built into the wall (as the Bible describes for Rahab’s home). So the evidence IS there. It’s just not there /for the presumed time period/. See more here: https://creation.com/the-walls-of-jericho
Similarly, there IS evidence of the Israelites being in Egypt, but not at the *presumed* time. Perhaps it’s just the archaeologists’ timescale that’s wrong? See https://creation.com/patterns-of-evidence for more.
Herzog claims: “Most … who once went into the field looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story – now agree that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people’s emergence are radically different from what that Bible tells us. That would, at the very least, cast doubt on the veracity of the Bible as a wholly reliable historical record.”
What he doesn’t mention is that most of the leading middle eastern archaeologists started their work not believing that the Bible was an accurate source, and ended up being convinced otherwise. One such person was Nelson Glueck, who wrote “As a matter of fact, however, it may be clearly stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a single biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact details historical statements in the Bible.”
And just to round this section off, the Bible was once accused of being wrong for mentioning, several times, a group of people who were allegedly a prominent nation, but for which no evidence had ever been found. Then they found evidence of the Hittites, and all those critics had to eat their words. The Bible was right after all. There are numerous other examples of the Bible being shown to be right when thought to be wrong.
DISMISSING DESIGN
“Firstly, I did not “dismiss” them in any way shape or form, merely contended that
there may be other potential explanations.”
I concede that “dismissed” may have been too strong a word. You did say that “it
remains one possible explanation”, but you also say that “it doesn’t necessarily
imply that at all” and “could never be falsified or refuted by its very nature”. So
you were at least downplaying its relevance.
“Dismiss (verb): to treat as unworthy of serious consideration. Clearly I have not
made any attempt to dismiss by that definition.”
Arguably, you have. You mention it as a possibility, and don’t definitely rule it
out, but you downplay its relevance to the point of not treating it worthy of
/serious/ consideration. Why would you “seriously” consider something that you
claim is unfalsifiable?
“DIRECT” EVIDENCE
You did use the word “direct”, but not in the section that I was responding to. You
referred to not accepting Bible as the “direct word of the Creator”, and therefore
not evidence, then, two paragraphs later, you said “I fully acknowledge that my
opinion piece is an assertion without definitive evidence. I would suggest you you,
however, that it has been around 2000 years or so since there existed anyone who
could have produce anything more definitive than that.” The word “that” at the end
of that quote is clearly referring to your previous sentence about definitive
evidence, not to your reference two paragraphs earlier about the Bible being
evidence.
PREDETERMINED OUTCOME
Your explanation of how old the concept is does not in any way refute that in your
opinion piece you didn’t /show/ that a predetermined outcome was involved. It’s also
interesting that you cite Laplace, who although regularly attending church, was
effectively an atheist.
ISAAC
You say, “To which I would respond: And what lesson did poor Isaac learn from
arbitrarily being put to the sword on a whim, albeit the whim of God? Such an unjust
death at the hands of one’s own father would only breed fear and distrust in Isaac
of his own father.”
Well, he could have learned the same lesson that his father did. And he was /not/
put to the sword, it wasn’t on a whim, and there was no unjust death. And of course this is a diversion, as it fails to address my criticism that you haven’t shown that there could be no reason for the incident.
ALWAYS EXISTING
You claim that I accused you of “not providing a reasoned argument, yet in this
statement you are making just such an assertion without any evidence.”
First, see how you just equivocated there from “reasoned argument” to “evidence”? I
did indeed provide reasoned argument, that being that the universe is running down,
and could not have been doing that for an eternity, whereas God is not running down.
“God having always existed is no more or less plausible than the Universe having
always existed.”
False, because God is not running down. That makes God always existing far more plausible that the universe always existing.
“It is merely that you view that as a fait accompli because your faith dictates that
the Universe was created- an a priori assumption you make out of religious belief.”
No, I provided reasoned argument based on evidence, which you have overlooked or
ignored.
DENOMINATIONS
Okay, you weren’t clear what you meant by “denominations”. Christianity, Islam,
etc. are normally referred to as different /religions/, and different groups within
Christianity as different /denominations/.
However, your presuppositions are getting in the way again. You actually asked “As
God is perfect, why are the scriptures of different denominations often inconsistent
with one another…”. This /assumes/ that Muslim, etc. holy books are also from
God. You haven’t shown that to be the case. You might as well ask why a forged
$100 note is not consistent with the real thing, if they all came from the same
mint.
“even then you did provide example of Catholics and Jehovah’s witnesses (the same
applies I’m sure to Mormons, etc) deviating significantly from other Christian
faiths.”
Except that, as I mentioned, JWs are not generally considered “Christian”. Neither
are Mormons. So really, the /only/ exception mentioned so far is the Catholics, and
even that is not a “significant” deviation, as Catholics agree with Protestants on
the books that they both accept as being part of the Bible.
VALIDITY OF THE BIBLE
“Islam, I’m sure you would agree, certainly has a far different opinion as to the
validity of various aspects of the Bible…”
Yeah. So? So do atheists. I’m not sure what that’s meant to show.
SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE
“certainly some criticisms, particularly of Genesis and the sequence of creation are
not only non-trivial but are fundamentally at odds with our scientific
understanding…”
Incorrect. Genesis is at odds with the /secular belief/ about the past, but not
with the evidence. This is a case of two different views disagreeing, and you
claiming that my view is wrong on the grounds that it disagrees with your view. But
that presumes that your view is correct, which of course I dispute. Further, your
view is demonstrably based on an anti-Christian presupposition, that is naturalism.
Your view (the “scientific” one) is based on the view that science can only
consider naturalistic explanations. Therefore, the biblical account is ruled out /a
priori/. If you therefore use that view to claim that the Bible is wrong, you are
guilty of making a circular argument.
PLANTS PRECEDING THE SUN
Despite coming across this argument numerous times before, it has to be one of the
silliest of all anti-biblical arguments that atheists put up. There are two very
obvious fallacies with the argument.
1) Plants can quite easily survive without light for a period of 24 hours, which is
the amount of time that the Bible claims they existed before the sun was created.
2) Plants don’t need /sun/light. They can live quite happily on other sources of
light. And the Bible says, as you have already acknowledged, that light existed
before the sun.
MOON LIGHT
The Bible doesn’t say that the moon produces its own light. It says “…let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.” Both the sun and moon are referred to as “lights”, but it is true that they both light the earth. It doesn’t explicitly say whether the moon produces its own light or reflects other light. The passage is talking about God creating them, and their /purpose/, not their mechanics.
STARS
“…the trillions of stars in the universe almost as an afterthought…”
So? That is your surprise that God doesn’t see them in the same way you do. Your expectations of how God should mention them is not an objective basis on which to ascribe inconsistency or error.
SCEPTICAL SOURCES
“A list of some of this inherent inconsistencies, and contradictions to known scientific facts are listed here:…”
Given that your second source mentions the plants-before-the-sun “problem”, this source is clearly an unreliable one, and it’s therefore no surprise to see that it’s taken from the appalling Skeptics Annotated Bible. See http://www.tektonics.org/sab/sab.php for a critique.
Your first source is little better. In one of it’s first claimed “contradictions”, it seems to assume that Jesus, the Creator, who is also called “the light of the world”, and who is said to have created the entire universe, including life, is somehow incapable of creating light without the sun. Even we mere mortals can create light in numerous ways. So how is it any sort of contradiction for the Bible to claim that He created light before He created the sun? Simply, it’s no contradiction at all. The argument is simply silly—as silly as the one about plants before the sun. That a supposedly respectable organisation can publish something this ridiculous shows that atheists are so desperate to disprove the Bible that they resort to nonsense like this.
CONCLUSION
“it would appear that in this debate at least, there are some compelling arguments for and against both the theist and atheist position from any objective viewpoint…”
No, it appears that the atheist arguments range for absolutely ridiculous nonsense to very weak to the occasional one, like the archaeological evidence, that might carry a little bit of weight, but still don’t actually prove much.
Why do you think I said that the theistic case is far stronger than the atheistic case? Because of nonsense like some of the arguments you’ve put here.
“…what you criticize my essay for, a lack of “evidence”, seems to be a ubiquitous issue and not merely confined to my article.”
Given that I have provided evidence (in the form of rational argument), then this is simply not so. The theistic side has lots of solid evidence. The atheistic side has to resort to utterly ridiculous arguments like the plants not being able to synthesise before the sun, despite there being light and despite only needing to last a day before the sun appeared, or like saying that God creating light before He created the sun is somehow a contradiction.
Well, Philip,
Needless to say we have probably come to the end of our little debate, having each laid out our positions, and any third party reading what we have both written can certainly make up their own mind as to the relative merits of each case. I will refrain from continuing the to-ing and fro-ing any further because it is unlikely you will vary from your position, and in spite of your undoubted, and quite laudable convictions to the contrary, I will certainly remain entrenched in mine, as I do not accept your characterisation of my arguments as weak or garbled or dismissive or whatever other negative aspersion you care to attach to it.
I thank you just the same for the discussion, which in spite of it all I found quite stimulating and thought-provoking. I respect your point of view and hope you found our discussion remotely satisfying, even if you fail to see any intellectual merit in my thoughts on the matter whatsoever.
All the best to you and yours.